[G2 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] billykxda:
Update 12/30/13 10 full days of no issues (as specified in this OP) for me or other VZW G2 owners after the latest VZW update, as reported here and on Android Central. Could it have been the result of the efforts of those that contributed here? Could be - no way of telling though. But thanks to everyone that weighed-in and contributed to the discussion.

Most of all "THANKS" to VZW and/or LG for either directly or incidentally fixing this issue.

__________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________

Update 12/24/13: It's now 3 days post VZW OTA update, and I am not seeing any issue at all anymore - nothing but stable, super-fast performance. Can we be past this issue once and for all? As of now it's still too early to tell, as it can take hours, days, weeks for this issue to surface. But, we are well on the way!

If you are a VZW G2 owner, please weigh-in at the end of this thread. We all want to know what you are seeing in the way of this long-standing software defect.

_______________________________________________________

Update 11/27/13: (more updates at the bottom of this OP)

The reports of the G2's erratic behavior related to the touchscreen have grown to the point where I really need to revise this OP so that readers can get a summary of what we've learned over time without having to read the entire thread.

The Issue:

The G2 exhibits erratic touchscreen behavior including:

- Phantom touches that result in unintended selections being made

- Wild scrolling - the user intends to scroll on a web page just a bit, and the page goes flying in that direction - out of control

- The inability to draw a straight line in a drawing app- your straight line gets interpreted on-screen as a jagged, EKG-like readout

- Pulling-down on the notification shade unintentionally selects one of the apps within the shade like QuickMemo or RichNote

- Swiping to unlock turns the screen off

- Pulling-down on the notification shade turns the screen off

- Gibberish is entered when using the swipe function on the keyboard

- Jittery behavior when holding on to an on-screen icon that you intend to move

- Jittery behavior when scrolling very slowly between homescreens

- Holding on to an icon on the homescreen (just holding it) can unintentionally move the icon to another part of the homescreen, or execute the application for that icon

The occurrence of this issue appears to some to be random, to others it clearly follows active use of the device, such as:

- Watching a video

- Playing a game

- Entering in paragraphs of text into the keyboard using the swipe function

- Spending time scrolling around web pages

- Actively swiping through home screens

As time goes on, there are more and more postings on forums across the 'net of people observing this issue. Typically, they are seeing just one symptom, but when you survey across all of the postings, it's immediately apparent that they are all related to the same root cause. You can simply Google terms like "G2 Touchscreen problems" and you'll find endless reports of issues related to the "G2 touchscreen". Here's a link to just one informative thread on another forum. There are many more.

One owner discovered early on that when the G2 is getting erratic, you can go into QuickMemo and if you attempt to draw straight lines in transparent mode, you'll often get wacky EKG-like, spiky lines. It's important to note that this is just a simple, somewhat reliable visual confirmation of the phantom touches. "Somewhat reliable" because it does not work in every case for every owner.

YouTube videos showcasing this defect:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19u8qo8-ACU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLnRZyKAL1M

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4QOMB8UTx4

The Cause:

Purely speculative at this point, but my vote is that it's a software issue (probably at the binary/driver level), because:

- Simply turning the screen off and back on will remedy the issue, for the moment

- It is not related to device tempurature, which could lead to hardware variances in the touchscreen itself, as there is no repeatable evidence of this

- It seems to be affected by "getting busy" with the device

The Fix:

Again, it's "early days" so I'll just forward my opinon: LG needs to investigate and address this issue with a software update.

In the meantime, you can turn your screen off, and then on again. In most cases, you'll be good-to-go for a while, or maybe for a few days, or maybe longer. It really appears to be usage-dependant.

A number of us are keeping an eye on the relationship between having sufficient RAM available and this issue. I have been religiously dumping apps during the day and I haven't had a recurrence in quite a while. This is certainly not conclusive at this point - just speculative for now. 12/1/13: RAM appears to have nothing to do with this. See post #91.

Regarding Rooting/ROMs: There are many accounts of owners who attempt to "fix" this problem by rooting and using a custom ROM. The majority of these owners end up reporting that the issue surfaces just the same with the new ROM. This is why I suspect a software issue at the binary/driver level.

Regarding Returning/Exchanging: If you are able to easily return or exchange, it's your decision. I decided to exchange mine after a week, even though most of my research showed that this issue just reoccurs for most owners. So I got a new one, and within 4 days it was exhibiting the same issue. There are numerous reports of owners that have gone through 3, 4 or more G2's, all exhibiting the same issue. So, it's your call. Good luck!

Lastly...

Please note that this issue does not surface for every owner every day - so please - there's no need to report in this thread that your device is "fine"!

12/1/13 update: See post #91. I was able to "play" with the issue for an extended time and learned some new things.

12/16/13 update: It appears that this issue is generally related to "getting busy" with the G2. One specific activity that is emerging as a repeatable observation across the G2 community is viewing videos in the browser (not via the YouTube app). This is not to say that this is a 100% prerequisite, it's just an activity that many (not all!) G2 owners report just prior to the G2 spazzing-out.